I'm currently in 2 bands. In the first I'm the drummer and in the second the lead guitarist. In the first band, when I come up with a good rhythm pattern or something, I play it to the other guys and they try to play a riff or what. In the second band, I come up with riffs and my drummer comes up with the rhythm patterns. The bassists in both bands just follow.

I've been in 4 bands, and have helped out with countless others in my area. Right now I am specializing in a one man project...so how I put songs together right now is totally different than what I used to do...

But in the last band that I was in, we had a chief lyricist, the rhythm guy, the riff/hook writer, and then the drummer.

I wrote the riffs, I can put together some pretty decent riffs, hooks, and breakdowns, but I have a hard time connecting them...that's where the rhythm guy would come in. He'd combine everything with chorus parts and the "meat and potatoes" if you will (he was the bassist). Drummer would lay down something after the bassist and I got the basis of the song down. Then either I or the singer would write the lyrics. 99% of our songs came out of jam sessions, just playing together and getting to know each others strengths and weaknesses makes writing so much easier.

Now that I am doing a solo thing, I just sit, play and record as much of my shit as I can at a time...eventually I will just piece it all together into an album...

The other guitarist (who is more technical than me) and the vocalist write stuff extremely rarely, to the extent that in almost 3 years of being "band partners" they wrote 3 and a half songs. in my band I do a lot of songwriting, which then gets "filtered" by the other guitarist and sometimes the vocalist (stuff like "oh, I like that, but that part sounds boring"). the result is that we now have about 3 songs written by them, 2 entirely by me (out of at least 6 which i showed them) and one which was a collaborative effort of all of us which took a Wintersun-like amount of time to put together. so yeah, I'm the biggest writer in the band

mostly (aside from that song on which we collaborated) we write the stuff at home, put it in guitar pro, the guys all learn their parts and we fine-tune things at the rehearsals (when we used to rehearse).

our previous drummer (we don't have one at the moment) used to also have some decent ideas and mostly redid his own drum parts, which is cool. the bad part about our former band was that there were too many creative ego's and we couldn't even agree on a fucking name for the band (mostly the drummer had objections but at least he's gone now)

as for lyrics though that's the vocalist's domain and me and the other guitarist also write some stuff but nothing too mindblowing as of yet.

I like the whatever works type writing process. Each band works in a different way I guess, it just makes sense to go with whatever works with each band and its members.

For my band we have our lead guitarist writing 99.9% of all parts of all our songs. Basically he sits and writes riffs with the drummer and they sit and work out structures. This sometimes happens with the rest of the band members in the jam room or just the drummer and guitarist. So if the rest of us are in the jam room while we are writing, we usually bounce ideas around, filter parts add layers. If we're not, then the next time we're in the jam room, the guitarist would play all parts that he and the drummer have worked out and then again we fine tune it, add/remove parts, add layers etc. Once we're happy with the song we split up the parts so everyone learns their stuff. I just pretty much follow the riffs, but occasionally I do add my own stuff.
We then layer vocals on it, and the vocalist pretty much writes all lyrics as well, the rest of us usually don't bother too much with lyrics unless we have ideas in mind.

So far this has worked well for us, it is a time consuming process as we write really slow coz we work on songs quite a bit till we're really happy with it, so its not just to finish up a song so that you have 10 songs to put out an album or whatever.

I'm guessing quite a few bands work the same way, but there are bands who just wing it as well and if that works for them, its awesome. It just makes sense to go with whatever you feel works for the band as a whole.

Written by Branzig on 17.03.2012 at 14:28

I've been in 4 bands, and have helped out with countless others in my area. Right now I am specializing in a one man project...so how I put songs together right now is totally different than what I used to do...

But in the last band that I was in, we had a chief lyricist, the rhythm guy, the riff/hook writer, and then the drummer.

I wrote the riffs, I can put together some pretty decent riffs, hooks, and breakdowns, but I have a hard time connecting them...that's where the rhythm guy would come in. He'd combine everything with chorus parts and the "meat and potatoes" if you will (he was the bassist). Drummer would lay down something after the bassist and I got the basis of the song down. Then either I or the singer would write the lyrics. 99% of our songs came out of jam sessions, just playing together and getting to know each others strengths and weaknesses makes writing so much easier.

Now that I am doing a solo thing, I just sit, play and record as much of my shit as I can at a time...eventually I will just piece it all together into an album...

can you do it without the breakdowns?

Written by theFIST on 19.03.2012 at 18:41

can you do it without the breakdowns?

Depends on the strong structure and what genre I am playing in...some songs just call for a breakdown...particularly in thrash or death metal.

Written by Branzig on 19.03.2012 at 18:59

Written by theFIST on 19.03.2012 at 18:41

can you do it without the breakdowns?

Depends on the strong structure and what genre I am playing in...some songs just call for a breakdown...particularly in thrash or death metal.

i rather think especially in thrash and death you should get as much top speed as possible and avoid breakdowns by any means possible
but well, i"m rather listener than musician, so i have a different perspective

This is actually really helpful, I just formed a sludge/hardcore punk kinda band with some buddies.

We'll see how it turns out

Written by Boxcar Willy on 19.03.2012 at 20:59

This is actually really helpful, I just formed a sludge/hardcore punk kinda band with some buddies.

We'll see how it turns out

Nice!

What's your guys influences? What are you going to play about?

It's one of my dreams to be apart of a Crust band...but there aren't any drummers around here who are into it lol

Written by Branzig on 19.03.2012 at 23:10

Written by Boxcar Willy on 19.03.2012 at 20:59

This is actually really helpful, I just formed a sludge/hardcore punk kinda band with some buddies.

We'll see how it turns out

Nice!

What's your guys influences? What are you going to play about?

It's one of my dreams to be apart of a Crust band...but there aren't any drummers around here who are into it lol

Were play a sort of Cancer Bats meets Baroness style.

We have a drummer, but he's "afk" for a week or two.

Written by Branzig on 19.03.2012 at 23:10


It's one of my dreams to be apart of a Crust band...but there aren't any drummers around here who are into it lol

One of my dreams is to be part of an Avant-Garde metal band but there aren't any crazy musicians around here :/
Even less public.

Written by Boxcar Willy on 20.03.2012 at 01:02

Were play a sort of Cancer Bats meets Baroness style.

We have a drummer, but he's "afk" for a week or two.

That sounds interesting. I'm not a fan of Cancer Bats, but the Baroness name drop is interesting

Written by Spirit Molecule on 20.03.2012 at 12:55

Written by Boxcar Willy on 20.03.2012 at 01:02

Were play a sort of Cancer Bats meets Baroness style.

We have a drummer, but he's "afk" for a week or two.

That sounds interesting. I'm not a fan of Cancer Bats, but the Baroness name drop is interesting

I'm also thinking of adding some jazz elements, if the other guys sre okay with it

Written by Boxcar Willy on 20.03.2012 at 13:40

I'm also thinking of adding some jazz elements, if the other guys sre okay with it

Careful there sparky, on paper it sounds like a great idea to cram all kinds of genres into your music, but in the end it turns into a fucking nightmare lol.

Trust me, I know from experience....haha

Written by Branzig on 21.03.2012 at 06:48

Written by Boxcar Willy on 20.03.2012 at 13:40

I'm also thinking of adding some jazz elements, if the other guys sre okay with it

Careful there sparky, on paper it sounds like a great idea to cram all kinds of genres into your music, but in the end it turns into a fucking nightmare lol.

Trust me, I know from experience....haha

Who says you can not mix everything in ? Try Status Quo - In The Army Now, you will be impressed. Certainly very good musical sense needed !
As for....the guy keep on boosting his capability of.....I really doubt, I think your advise is good in general cases.

I am more happy to see him mixing salad rather than mixing music.

Written by ( invisible ) on 21.03.2012 at 08:09

Written by Branzig on 21.03.2012 at 06:48

Written by Boxcar Willy on 20.03.2012 at 13:40

I'm also thinking of adding some jazz elements, if the other guys sre okay with it

Careful there sparky, on paper it sounds like a great idea to cram all kinds of genres into your music, but in the end it turns into a fucking nightmare lol.

Trust me, I know from experience....haha

Who says you can not mix everything in ? Try Status Quo - In The Army Now, you will be impressed. Certainly very good musical sense needed !
As for....the guy keep on boosting his capability of.....I really doubt, I think your advise is good in general cases.

I am more happy to see him mixing salad rather than mixing music.

I take it your are judging my musical ability from Deadwood, now don't get me wrong, I'm no Joe Satriani but I have more skill than what I displayed in Deadwood. I initially tried to make it simplistic and dark...

Quote:

Written by ( invisible ) on 21.03.2012 at 08:09

Who says you can not mix everything in ?

The artist can do whatever they please, it is their music...But if you try to mix styles that generally are played in the major key then adding a lot of minor chords in it...not only can you become lost very easily in the music stratosphere, but it starts to ruin the songs. You're talking apples to oranges.

I'm not saying it can't be done, I am just saying that it can be very difficult to pull off, and IMO, even when it is pulled off "musically correct," it still sounds cluttered or like a confused jumble to me.

Quote:

Written by Branzig on 21.03.2012 at 15:31

Written by ( invisible ) on 21.03.2012 at 08:09

Who says you can not mix everything in ?

The artist can do whatever they please, it is their music...But if you try to mix styles that generally are played in the major key then adding a lot of minor chords in it...not only can you become lost very easily in the music stratosphere, but it starts to ruin the songs. You're talking apples to oranges.

I'm not saying it can't be done, I am just saying that it can be very difficult to pull off, and IMO, even when it is pulled off "musically correct," it still sounds cluttered or like a confused jumble to me.

Here's what's going down, it's a hardcore sludgy sound, like Baroness and Cancer Bats had a bastard child, played with some jazz style rythms.

That's not too over the top

Written by Boxcar Willy on 21.03.2012 at 20:52

Here's what's going down, it's a hardcore sludgy sound, like Baroness and Cancer Bats had a bastard child, played with some jazz style rythms.

That's not too over the top

Ever listen to Greg Ginn? He was the founder and principal song writer for Black Flag.

He played hardcore with jazz phrasing. Fucking incredible.

Because PUNK HARDCORE IS THE ONLY HARDCORE!

The best way to do it for me is to either think of some sort of harmonic idea that might be cool, or just happen to just stumble on a cool idea by just noodling around or playing someone elses riff, etc. Anyways, once I have an idea, ideas tend to flow and I'm left with a shit ton of possibilities sometimes. The next part is organizing the ideas, which I'll use a drum machine to start to build the song and also think about song structure and how I want the dynamics of the song to go. Then, jam on some ideas with my brother, which makes more ideas, and then you have a shit ton of ideas and you don't know what to do with it. So you somehow make it work and it ends of being nothing like you planned, but also much better than planned. Lately I've been trying to be more organized with things though.

9/10 times, either me or the bassist comes up with a riff, we play it at practice, if it's received well, we play it a few more times till we have the basic structure down, take it home and tinker, and practice it like hell till we have it down and tight. i usually come up with lyrics last minute and never remember them.

I am not in a band so I can't speak to that, but I like bands with the one creative genius behind it all, sort of pulling it all together before he dies in some tragically metal way, lol.

Examples of that would be (of course): Death, Dissection, Windir..

Freezing to death in the wilderness is not necessary, of course.

It depends. Sometimes we just improvise when we are practising, sometimes I compose songs or do just some riff ideas etc ready for rehearsal and see if it works.